Bad Parenting

Okay, so I just watched Dr. Phil, and I have to say that it still amazes me how unobservant and imperceptive people can be. Now I don't watch T.V. much, and for the past couple days I've been trying to figure out a show to watch for this assignment and it has been driving me up the wall. Perhaps next week I'll start watching House again, but I digress. I've watched a few episodes of Dr. Phil and usually they don't strike me as particularly riveting. This episode, however, was about women who, despite words of caution from family, choose the wrong sort of man to marry. I'm only going to talk about the first one, because it meant more to me. The second one was about a woman who only married men in jail...but this one, I think, will shock quite a few.
A woman is married to a man who is not at all fit to take care of a family. He has kicked her out of the house on several occasions and she has left with her three children on her own a few times as well. Don't ask me why she kept coming back...anyways, not only has the husband plead guilty for animal abuse, he plead guilty of child abuse and neglect as well. Their youngest son was playing with lighter fluid one night and caught on fire. The father put a blanket around him, put out the fire and put him to bed. The child's school found the burns a couple days later and sent him to the hospital. He had first, second, and third degree burns...needless to say, all three children were taken away and the mother's parents were given full custody.
As I was watching this, I really couldn't believe what I was listening too. The mother and father were both such stupid people. They kept denying everything and when Dr. Phil had legal documents against the father, he was like oh, yeah. And everything they said kept coming back to, "well my wife's mother just doesn't want me with her and everything she says about me is ludicrous." I wanted to be on that stage and give him a good slap. Dr. Phil repeatedly told the audience of your inability to take care of children and all you can do is point the finger at your mother-in-law? His wife was even stupider. Her mom was saying that her daughter is so smart and she could do so much better, but through the show I came to the conclusion that she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about either. Her own mother is sacrificing all her time and money to raise 3 children and she said that her mom only does it for the money, that all her parents ever think about is money. Um, no, they only get $260 from them a month...now I don't know about you, but I don't think that's enough to raise three children with. It just made me cringe, because Dr. Phil caught them with every lie and the wife really made me sick how she was basically silent the whole time and only opened her mouth to bad talk her mom and to say how great a dad her husband is.
You know, to me, a good mother cherishes the welfare of her children above all else and that they should get the best that that mother can give them. I know that woman knows her husband is an inadequate father, so listening to her really made me wonder how much she values her children.
I agreed whole-heartedly with what Dr. Phil told the father. He told him that he needs to stop insulting the people taking care of his children and stop asking when he can have them back, but he needs to ask what is wrong with him that he needs to change.
This is just one of many cases of abuse and neglect in the world. It really gets to me when I hear of things like this and the parents still insist that they are the best things for who's supposed to be the most precious thing to them. They're supposed to take very good care of and protect the people and things you hold dear, even if from them.